A group of players who challenged leadership at the Major League Baseball Players Association in the spring are not returning to positions they held on a prominent union committee, per voting results the union announced Wednesday.
Free agent Jack Flaherty, Lucas Giolito of the Boston Red Sox and Ian Happ of the Chicago Cubs are no longer a part of the union’s eight-player executive subcommittee. They were among a group of players who, with the aid of former MLBPA lawyer Harry Marino, pressed executive director Tony Clark to remove deputy director Bruce Meyer in a short-lived but dramatic mutiny.
Chris Bassitt (Toronto Blue Jays), Jake Cronenworth (San Diego Padres), Pete Fairbanks (Tampa Bay Rays), Cedric Mullins (Baltimore Orioles), Paul Skenes (Pittsburgh Pirates) and Tarik Skubal (Detroit Tigers) are newcomers to the group. Big-league players voted on the positions at annual meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Wednesday.
Marcus Semien (Texas Rangers) and Brent Suter (Cincinnati Reds) are the only two holdovers from the previous subcommittee, while Semien is the only holdover from the 2021-22 lockout.
The subcommittee works closely with senior union staff and also carries some weight in major player decisions. Typically, when the union decides matters like accepting a new collective bargaining agreement, 38 major leaguers carry a vote — the eight players on the subcommittee, and 30 representatives from each individual team. The 30 player reps vote on the eight subcommittee members.
Players on a major-league roster as of Tuesday or who had been on a major-league roster at the end of the 2024 season were eligible to be elected.
Subcommittee terms are for two years. When the next subcommittee election would typically arrive, a lockout could be about to begin or underway. The current CBA expires at midnight entering Dec. 2, 2026. (The last time the CBA expired, the subcommittee had been in place for a year.)
Francisco Lindor (New York Mets), Lance McCullers Jr. (Houston Astros) and Austin Slater (Chicago White Sox) join Flaherty, Giolitio and Happ as departures from the group.
Agent Scott Boras has two players in the group, Semien and Skubal. Rival agents in the past have criticized the union as deferential to Boras. During the 2021-22 lockout, five Boras clients were on the subcommittee. Union leadership has always denied any undue influence from Boras.
Each role on the executive subcommittee technically comes with a different title. Semien and Bassitt are Association reps. Cronenworth and Skenes are alternate Association reps. Suter and Fairbanks are pension reps, and Mullins and Skull are pension alternates.
(Photo of Flaherty: Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
